Damon Peterson v. Ricky D. Dixon, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections

Whether a Certificate of Appealability should have issued because reasonable jurists would find debatable or wrong the district court’s conclusion that the Eighth Amendment permits a mandatory life-with-parole sentence for a juvenile offender when the state parole commission has determined that based solely on static factors related to the crime itself, the juvenile will not be paroled within his natural life expectancy.

Whether a Certificate of Appealability should have issued because reasonable jurists would find debatable or wrong the district court’s conclusion that there is no Fourteenth Amendment due process right, once a state has set up a parole system, to a non-arbitary and non-capricious parole commission decision which considers an offender’s juvenile status at the time of the crime and demonstrated post-crime rehabilitation as factors as to whether he should be released prior to his natural life expectancy.